The last train to Wrexham

I had my Wednesday all planned out. Mostly it involved getting things ready for a trip at the weekend. Then on the local news came the story that made me change my plans.

Wrexham and Shropshire Railway is to close on Friday.

Friday ?! That was only a couple of days away !

My panic wasn't down to some trainspottery sadness at the loss of a railway company. It was because I had always promised myself a trip to Wrexham on one of these trains. I've used them a few times and have always been hugely impressed, not just by the comfort but by the superb staff. So far my journeys had been restricted to Cosford and a return from Wolverhampton (you might argue that any journey out of Wolverhampton would be pleasant but that would be rude. And incur the wrath of the Black Country), neither of which are long runs. Using these trains is a pleasure to be wallowed in. Michael Williams wrote about his trip down to London using them in the excellent book "The Slow Train" and feels the same way. This is old-fashioned rail travel in the best meaning of the phrase.

To be honest I've never had a particular desire to go to Wrexham other than to enjoy watching the countryside roll by while sitting in comfort. Which is why I dropped my plans and grabbed the 10:54 from Leamington to Wrexham.

W&S are what is called an "Open Access" operator which means they are an independent company that have to negotiate the rights to stop at certain stations, use odd routes and generally have to fit in between everyone else. They tried to differentiate themselves by the quality of the experience and the reasonable price of the tickets.

The train arrived at Leamington looking very clean and smart. My coach had recently been fitted out with dark grey curtains and seat covers. Even though the end wall proclaimed "Standard Class", it was on a par with the first class on most other services.

My idea of a good train journey involves a good book, some music, something nice in the way of a cakey bun to eat and a drink of some sort, usually diet coke or hot chocolate. In the coach next to mine was the small buffet counter. But it was unmanned.

You might think this wasn't a surprise. After all, 12 hour earlier the staff had been told they were losing their jobs and with a company less than two years old there wasn't going to be any nice redundancy package to ease the pain. I can fully understand why you just wouldn't bother.

As it was our excellent train manager, Jane Meredith, did the honours. Despite sounding a bit chocked a few times as she talked to us on the tanoy or in person, she provided a very professional service. I recognised her from the Cosford trip and remembered how impressed I'd been with the way she'd handled a group of kids with not enough supervisory grown-ups too.

In the absence of buffet staff, Jane dished up drinks and food for the few passengers on board. The service is mainly about getting people to London in the morning and back in the evening. The traffic into Wales isn't huge, especially in January. All food and drink was free so I enjoyed a very nice fruit scone and jam along with some chocolate to drink. To be honest I'd planned to buy this anyway but I suppose there isn't any point in messing around with change by this point.



Jane made an announcement about the closure of the service as we passed through Coventry (W&S don't have the rights to stop there which hasn't helped the finances I suspect) and the lady next to me was not impressed. She was a regular user of the service from Gobowen to Banbury and was really going to miss it. Her daughter seemed more interested in the raggy toy but will undoubtedly wonder why she doesn't get a nice comfy train in future and has to walk across Birmingham instead.

Another passenger seemed more interested in what was going to happen to the sets, that is the trains themselves. For once I was really ashamed to be interested, however lightly, in railways. I mean, here we have someone who's just been told she is losing her job and her job and all this idiot wanted to know about was what would happen to the train. He was lucky not to have been told exactly where he could have put it !

The journey itself was a pleasure. We wiggled around the edges of Birmingham which made for a far more interesting view then if the train had charged through New Street, another station closed to the company. For the non-anorak I have to point out that the company uses proper coaches pulled by an engine rather than the more common version where each vehicle has an engine under the floor. This give a better ride and the surroundings are quieter. You can hear the gentle clickety-clack as you cross rail joints and the odd soft toot from the engine horn at the front. These coaches are over 25 years old of course but that's progress for you. If I have a complaint, it's that the fixed arms make sliding your legs out from under the table a bit tricky but I can live with that for the roomy seats.

As we approached Wales it was apparent that I wasn't the only one interested in the demise of these fine grey trains. At both Ruabon and Gobowen there were people on the platforms with cameras. Once we reached our destination and crunched our way up a salt-covered platform, even the BBC had turned up to film our arrival. Some local radio person stuffed a microphone in my face and asked my opinion on the ending of the service. I said something along the lines of it being a shame a quality service can't survive in Britain any more and this was a terrible shame. Not that it mattered - there are already some half-hearted attempts to save it, the local MP is jumping on the bandwagon rather faster than he jumped on the train apparently, but it's no good. In future you'll have to do what I did on the way back and change at Birmingham or Smethick. The "sets" will doubtless be packed off to a siding somewhere and left to rot while everyone carries on with noisy and uncomfortable trains, because it's what we do nowadays.

Along with several other passengers, I wished Jane good luck in the future. She disappeared through a door into a room in which it could be glimpsed, was fullof other W&S staff in the same boat. I hope they are lucky in the future. They deserve it.

More photos on Flickr.

Long Itchington Beer Festival 2010

The trouble with this interweb thingy is that you don’t know who’s reading your words. Worse, you can’t tell how upset they are going to be when they do read them. So it was that after last years trip to the Long Itchington beer festival, the organiser got in touch with me and moaned that I hadn’t given his pub a mention, instead describing it as the mystery pub we couldn’t find.

Therefore, this year I had absolutely no choice but to go and try the festival again. It’s not ‘cos I wanted to you understand, it was my duty.

According to the weatherman, the village would probably be washed away by the monsoon conditions predicted. Luckily the afternoon was fine, dry and the bus into the wilds of the Warwickshire countryside, not too late. Riding in unusual backward facing seats didn’t provide the greatest start especially as after a couple of miles, one of the other passengers shut the only open window so that he could feel the full effects of the vehicles very effective heating system. It’s a measure of the true nature of the British people that we politely allowed him to decide on the temperature despite being unable to understand the correct way to wear a pair of trousers. After all, someone who wakes up in the morning and decided that the waistband should be low enough that he has to do a belt up tightly over his own wedding tackle is possibly slightly odd. And can sing falsetto.

I’d taken the precaution of printing a map off from the festival website but we didn’t need it to find the first stop – The Buck and Bell just behind the duck pond. The roads around the building had become a temporary beer garden with crowds standing around enjoying a drink and watching others pass by on the way to their next refreshment stop. Rather than confine us inside, the Buck had laid on a small bar under a gazebo at one end of the building and a very tempting hot food stand at the other.

Last year we had a little bit of a problem explain that the beer should be served in the commemorative glass. This year the problem was getting the glass itself ! The outdoor barman was under the impression that they weren’t on offer this year. A little training was obviously in order along the lines of reading the pubs advert in the festival guide which said, “Festival shirts and glassware available here” Oooops !

On the other hand the beer, Darling Buds from the Warwickshire Brewery, was delicious and more than made up for slight confusion. While enjoying the pint there were plenty of traditional British beer festival characters on hand to provide some entertainment too. For example, “The Trainspotters” were carefully working through the list of brews and highlighting those they had already sampled so as not to waste time repeating a tasting. When I say highlighting I mean with a real, bright yellow, highlighter pen one of the team had probably pinched from their office. Judging by the dayglo effect on the pages they’d been working hard for most of the day too – a glimpse of the book was both blinding and sufficient to provide the viewer with a healthy looking suntan...

Underneath a tree was rarer sight – a genuine drunk person. You might think that a festival devoted to beer would be full of people out of their heads, and ready to make an appearance on a Channel 5 documentary on “Broken Britain” but no, festival goers are decent, honest and upstanding people who are there to sample and appreciate the panoply of tastes on offer. Not for us the “shot” of alcohpop, no we want to savour our drinks – just like people say they do on the continent but without having to learn French or wear a beret. Our drunk may have had an unusual haircut but all he did was sit on the grass drift off to sleep while everyone around him carried on as normal.

Finally there were a few people in costume. At least one St George was present plus some cohorts dressed in related attire. One was carrying an enormous axe – that would have given the TV people a shock, no concealed weapon here – another appeared as a ginger wigged woman. Admittedly this last costume was not very convincing, you’d have needed big, thick beer goggles to have been fooled. And of course there were Morris Dancers. Luckily there performances had finished but the law says morrismen must drink their own bodyweight in real ale every day and that’s what they were trying to do.

After the first pint we moved on to the Harvester. Inside the small bar there was a healthy queue. Better still, commemorative glasses were on offer but I couldn’t decide what I wanted to drink. Eventually I delayed the glass buying and went for halves of “Lilly the pink” and something that mentioned lemons. While waiting one of the other customers, who looked like an aficionado, asked if there were any more pumps. Exhibiting my local knowledge I said this was the entire bar, upon which news he mumbled something about the beer being gassy. Then he ordered a Budweiser. The Englishman in me nearly saw him dragged out to the street and given a stern dressing down – dammit, it’s a beer festival there is no need to order an American “beer” when nice stuff is available.

Anyway, The Square became the beer garden for the crowds unable to fit in the pub. Local planning has not been kind to this street as despite its name, the half timbered houses look out onto a sea of tarmac. Along here drove one or two locals not looking too impressed at the revelries taking place. Mind you, they looked like the sort of people you can’t please any of the time as they sat in air-conditioned and very clean 4 wheel drives and Mercedes so we just made way politely and carried on supporting the local economy.

We also made way for the horse drawn dray that was doing the rounds. Well, once we’d all had a stroke of the cute horsies anyway. There’s a little something in everyone that is drawn to fuss hairy animals and these good natured beasts were obviously well used to it. Even when one of the cars squeezed past they stood their ground although the look their handler gave them would have scorched the paintwork...

Then off on a voyage of discovery. Past the school. Past the Co-op with its handy cash machine. Past quite a few houses and eventually we found the Green Man. I’d been keen to come here since festival organiser Mark promised me a free pint last year for my previous blog entry. If you are thinking this is mercenary then you are right and yes appearance can be bought on this website for the price of a beer.

Yet again, the pub was packed. My first call was to relieve myself of earlier drinks in the Gents. Ladies may wish to turn away now as I have to describe the room. If a man needs a quick pee, there is a nice wide porcelain urinal available. It’s the white wall with gutter communal variety rather than a series of single receptacles. So far so normal. However in front of the gutter there is a solidly constructed, stainless steel device – a fence with a sloping (towards the gutter you’ll be pleased to note) top about shin or knee height depending how tall you are. Neither myself or the man who walked in after me had seen anything like this before.

“Bloody hell, what’s that ?” he exclaimed.

As a guess, I suggested, it’s to stop us falling in.

“Hmmmm” he replied and then got on with the job in hand.

All I can assume is that the male population of Long Itchington are prone to a bit of urinal snorkelling or that they have a tendency to fall in to the inch deep channel and need to be rescued, hence a fence to keep them out and stop soggy feet returning to the carpeted confines of the bar. To be fair, it worked and no one drowned while I was in there.

Back in the bar there was no immediate sign of Mark and I wasn’t going to push my luck trying for the free pint with anyone else, the man with the giant axe had been heading this way last time I saw him. Some amusingly named “Bear Ass” was available (The Warwickshire heraldic device is a bear and staff) and a nice new souvenir glass came my way too. In a side room a folk band played away but it was too crowded to stay inside and listen – anyway one strummer was sitting in front of the door so as to block any potential audience out. Assuming the sound would be audible outside we repaired to the wooden benches in the sun.

Outside again we discovered that the musicians had been put in a room with no open windows. Whether this was an oversight or comment on their standards of playing I didn’t get the chance to find out as Mark found me to say hello. It appears that despite me being rude about all the pubs last year, I wasn’t about to be chased out of the village by pitchfork wielding locals. In fact his disappointment was that I hadn’t been rude about his pub, which of course is his own fault for not putting any maps out for us last year. This year, much better and we could all get around as well as someone who has been living there for several generations.

Finally able to sit, I perused the enormous beer list and discovered that there was drink from the Castletown brewery based on the Isle of Man available at the Two Boats. Being a big fan of all things Manx, once the glass was empty, it was time for the trip to the canal.

On the way a stop was made for a Buck and Bell burger. At first glance a fiver might have looked steep but this was a proper burger. Un-round in the way only a decent hand-made burger can be, it was best part of an inch thick and complete with plenty of salad. It was this that was my undoing. I’ve always had a problem with tomatoes in sandwiches. They always seem to squirt juice over me as I eat and after just one bite, my shirt was splattered. Thus the rest of the evening was spent looking like the sort of sad act who walks around with food down his front.

It was worth it though. Delicious. Ronald Mac can only dream of producing such quality fayre.

The Two Boats is a canal side pub. To my disappointment the Castletown beer hadn’t lasted very long into the day so I drowned my sorrows with an alternative. The towpath drinking area was full but taking a stroll up the cut a bit seemed popular with most drinkers getting as far as the nearby lock before returning with a thirst. It certainly seemed a less wet option that the inflatable canoe being tested by a couple of hardy souls. I wondered if the large number of barges moored were related to the festival but then spotted glasses of wine sitting on the roof of one and a couple drinking canned poncy lager on another so perhaps it was just chance. The wall of boats probably did save the odd drinker from a dunking though later on as you couldn’t easily fall into the water.

Finally there was just time for a quick half at the Cuttle Inn the only other pub we hadn’t tried this year or last. It’s a posh place which is probably a haven for those who feel a bit pushed out by the incomers who only turn up once a year and can't be bothered to walk up the hill a bit. Behind the bar they discussed how Peroni glasses are more trouble than they are worth because they just keep breaking. Not knowing what one of these is, I took my Owl Screech and departed to the patio area. Here it was, overlooking the car park with Porches sporting signs warning the owners not to leave them here all the time as the spaces are wanted for other people, that we saw the only proper, TV style drunkenness.

A group of lads were out for the night and some were wearing fancy dress. In particular, one of their number who I seem to recall was named “Seth”, was dressed up like a polyester Richard Gere from “An Officer and a gentleman” in a suit slightly to big for him. For some reason he decided a beer throwing session was in order despite the protestations of his friends. Well, here is a handy hint for the future – If you are wearing a bright white suit, presumably with the intention of standing out in the eyes of the opposite sex, do not get beer and lager all over it. At the end of the film, Debra Winger was not swept off her feet by someone who looked like he’s been urinal snorkelling.

And so back to the bus. Just in time to escape before the predicted monsoon. With a bit of luck I’ll still be able to go back next year. Seth will have dried out and I might even claim my free pint.

Official Long Ithington Beer Festival website

I took a load of photos which are on Flickr for your amusement.

Welshpool

Birmingham News Street station isn’t an appealing place at the best of times. With half the lights switched off thanks to an electrical fault, the resulting gloom does nothing to improve it’s appeal.

More of a worry that as well the escalators, the electrical mishap had closed all the concessions on the concourse, apart from a dimply lit branch of WH Smith. While this might have been a minor inconvenience for those in the magazine rack reading library, for me it could have been disastrous as my favourite muffin supplier was out of action. I was facing a long train journey at the mercy of the onboard catering trolley.

A quick dash up to the shopping centre above the station and a bit of hammering on the counter sorted things out as I purchased the last double-chocolate muffin in the place. Even better, it was so freshly baked the choccy chips were gooey as I sat and ate it three-quarters of an hour later.

My trip to Welshpool was a spur of the moment decision. Faced with a department meeting which didn’t concern me but promised to be limb-gnawingly dull and held in some out of the way centre that I suspected would tax my limited ability to navigate the roads of Coventry, I decided that a day off and a nice train ride was in order. The destination was one I’d promised to myself a couple of times looking out of carriage windows from passing trains. The weather was threatened to be superb, what was stopping me ?

Birmingham to Welshpool is served by a surprisingly long train that was unsurprisingly low of passengers. In my carriage there were no more than half a dozen of us. A couple of seats in from sat a sharply dressed man in a pale grey suit that contrasted with his Virgin Media t-shirt. When the guard arrived to check tickets he surprised me by pulling out an old-fashioned roll of cash rather than a piece of plastic to pay up – more Dell Boy than Gordon Gecko.

Some say that England is disappearing under concrete. I disagree as the gaps between towns are still huge when viewed from the train. “They” may need to revise there opinions however as the latest thing seems to be to cover fields in plastic sheet. Long, shiny strips of the stuff are laid in neat rows covering and protecting (I assume) the precious seedlings. For anyone who complains about bright yellow fields of oilseed rape, the sight of striped grown visible from miles away should have them prepareing to fire off a missive to the Daily Telegraph.

At Telford the sharp dressed man left and was replaced by two very clean cut men in identical suits and ties who sat facing each other around a table. On the lapel of the one facing me was a large black badge on which I could read the words “Elder O’Brien” and “Jesus Christ”. I’d guess that it was Mr O’Brien on the train and not his boss, although if I’m wrong then the journey was surprisingly uneventful – no water into wine, raising the dead or that sort of thing. Closer inspection later allowed me to read the full text showed him to be a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ and the laterday saints – more commonly called a Mormon. Followers of this faith often carry out 18 months to 2 years full-time missionary work around the world apparently (OK, I looked it up on Wikipedia). It would appear that Elder O’Brien and his colleague were off to the wild lands of deepest Wales to print religion to an area where strange people spoke a funny language...

To be frank, the scenery on this trip isn’t much to write home, or even a blog post, about. It’s green and pleasant enough but rarely diverted me from my book, a slightly turgid tomb on the history of Radio 4. When we reached Shrewsbury the keen observer would notice some slight changes. The railway signals are the old-fashioned semaphore type rather than traffic lights.

The station entrance is guarded by a huge signal box and the multiple platforms speak of a town of considerable importance. The platforms are graced with a brace of train-spotters, the first I’ve seen. Where once would have been displayed adverts there is now an art show by the Shrewsbury Youth Project. Each arch on a wall is home to a large canvas that has been decorated in a style the cognoscenti would call “Street Art” and others “Graffiti”. I suppose it ads a splash of colour to the scene and keeps the kids off the streets where they might choose to paint surfaces that can’t be easily replaced. You have to wonder if the architects and builders of the station ever envisaged that we’d be less interested in repairing the canopies than hanging up aerosol cartoons of people on bikes by “Shaz”.

The hills arrive as we approach journeys end. I could tell that I was in Wales thanks to the local speed camera van having something unpronounceable written in big letters on the side. Presumably “Safety Camera Partnership” or similar doesn’t translate naturally but you don’t want to annoy someone who has just been nicked for racing his Ford Escort down a windy road built for sheep by imposing law from a blatantly English vehicle”. Business looked slow as the only powered transport other than the train was a distant tractor.

Welshpool has several stations but the one travellers arrive at is a single platform affair with a bus stop shelter and connections to the town on both sides via a straggly metal footbridge. In an effort to completely avoid any steps and the straddle the neighbouring bypass the designer produced a structure looking like an enormous daddy-longlegs that someone painted in pale, municipal, grey. Contrasted against this were several fluorescent jackets belonging to one of the largest Police presences I’d seen for a long while.

Exiting the giant insect I wandered over to the Old Station. It was this building that caught my eye as I’d travelled past previously. A magnificent bring building obviously intended as a show-off gesture by a confident railway company. Now separated from the platforms by the main road, it has been turned into a sort of shopping centre where women buy clothes inspired by the countryside, rather than the sort of thing real country people wear which is mostly wellingtons and baler twine, for themselves and their husbands. For the gentleman there is a golf shop and surprisingly a small room full of Hornby trains and Scalextric cars. For the tourists, Welsh fudge and rock plus all manner of lovely souvenirs were on offer for that last minute present buying spree. While poking around and realising that even I was too fashionable for the garments on offer, I asked why the local constabulary were out in force.

“The Queen has come by train to open the new livestock market” was the reply. This explained it, when the monarch arrives then every copper locally is expected to polish his or her boots and keep the local population under control. Judging by the numbers on duty, it would have been a field day for burglars in the surrounding areas. Even though there was no sign of the royal train, every exit on the footbridge was guarded and a small group sat on borrowed chairs by the end of the station building.

Now the livestock market appeared to be on the other side of the tracks to the town in an industrial area. On that basis I didn’t expect to see HRH during my visit. How wrong I was. At the end of the short walk into town were streets bedecked with bunting and crowds filling the pavements – only prevented from encroaching on the road by cattle barriers and even more burly coppers. In the distance were some official looking cars and in front of these were some armed forces cadets, a lady in mayoral garb, lots of press wielding cameras and in the middle of the scrum, a very short lady dressed in blue.

To my right was the Royal Hotel, obviously the destination for the party and outside there more official types who were presumably wishing her maj had stayed in the car and ignored the crowds so they could have something to eat. Instead she was making her way down one side of the street talking and collecting bouquets from the public. On the other side of the road, Prince Phillip performed the same function although you get the feeling that those there felt they had got Wise and not Morecombe – good but you wanted to meet the bigger star.

Eventually the Queen got as far as me to the sound of cameras and mobile phones snapping away. A spontaneous burst of applause rang out – presumably clapping to congratulate her on being Queen or something. The general feeling was “Isn’t she tiny” and “Doesn’t she look lovely” followed by “Thank God she’s got here, now we can have something to eat” from those by the hotel.

Even then the entertainment was not finished. The BBC correspondent Andrew Marr was doing a piece to camera, presumably desperate to link the new market into some election farming story. “Hello Mr Andrew Marr” shouted someone close to me although he received no acknowledgement. Possibly Marr had already discovered that the big political story of the day was happening elsewhere...

With the Queen in the hotel feasting on the best this part of Wales can offer, the crowd dispersed. I headed off down a side street – fighting up the main road wasn’t an option as everyone had decided they needed to be somewhere they weren’t. Feeling a bit peckish myself I found a fish and chip shop with attached café and ordered fish (unspecified and no options were offered) chip and peas (mushy, again, not options). I’d picked up the local paper to read as it had a suitably apocalyptic story on the front page regarding the recent Icelandic Volcano. The editor had obviously decided that this was a bandwagon not to be missed and leapt on it with aplomb - “Volcano wreaks havoc in Powys” - which translates into “bowls players held up abroad thanks to lack of flights” . The food was very hot and very tasty. If I'm being picky, the peas and chips got a bit mixed up on the plate but who cares ? Not the local population as the place was filling up nicely as I finished munching. You could hardly hear “Loose Women” playing on the large screen telly opposite the serving counter.

After this I took a gentle stroll up the high street. For pudding I tried a shortbread biscuit, which was disgusting, and then a chocolate covered ring doughnut from a different shop which wasn't that much better. Handy diet hint: only eat food that you throw away before the second bite.

The town hall has been turned into a rather nice indoor market. Lots of local food on offer plus hardware, second hand books and two stalls of “stuff”, those weird gift like things involving far too many fairies and elves plus added dream catchers. How do they make a living ? Also, perhaps I was being unfair but on seeing another bakers stall, I decided against more cake attempts in that direction even though the comestibles on offer looked tempting and home made in a good way.

Over the top of the hill is the third station which belongs to the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway which although it closed in 1956, lives on in the hands of enthusiasts who run steam engines on days when I'm not there leaving me with a view not much better than that available from Google Streetview.

Never mind, I wasn't there to look at steam trains. Even if I'd wanted to I didn't have time. Besides, the canal museum spotted on the way into town looked very interesting with an unusually shaped warehouse. Back in town the Queen had started to move so the straight route was blocked but some nifty navigation past the chip shop circumnavigated her. It's at that point my luck ran out – for future notice, the museum is shut on Wednesdays. Still, there were some nice wooden sculptures outside to look at, if you like giant handbags and fake birds anyway.

Back at the station the royal train was parked in the platform looking very nice and purple. Wale's best were blocking all entrances to the footbridge just in case anyone tried to find a seat on-board. A few people hung around but by this point she was ensconced in the travelling throne so there was nothing to see. Eventually the train pulled out and the plebs were allowed to wait for their own rather less grand conveyance.

Sitting on the platform a concrete mixer drove past with a fantastic claim, “Longest concrete conveyor in the world” . What a claim and what a way to finish up the day.

In summary: Welshpool, lovely town but give it a miss on Wednesday and try to avoid your visit clashing with the Queen.

See more photos on Flickr

Chester

Exactly a year ago I set myself a challenge. The plan was to visit every town on my NRM Railway posters Calendar. Those who know me won't be that surprised that I failed. By the 30th of December I had visited exactly none of the places. So with one day to go, I made a dash for Chester.

The trip involved 35 quid and 2 changes of train but at least I'd have achieved one goal. That and I've been off work between Christmas and New Year so I needed to get out and about a bit to ease the effects of close proximity to chocolate. Even the weather seemed to be on my side.

First stop was Birmingham which is easy enough. A quick walk from Moor Street to New Street and on the departure board leaving in under 5 minutes was a train to Crewe, my next stop. This left me with a dilemma, I could make progress or catch the next train while purchasing my preferred travelling fare, vis a muffin from the Millie Cookies beside the ticket barrier and some soft drink. (Note: Other muffin outlets are available but for some strange reason they just don't seem to taste as good). Abstemiousness won and a few minutes later, after a search for the mysterious hidden platform 4C, I was on an electric train that made noises last heard emanating from the BBC Radiographic workshop in the 1960's.

Fear not dear reader, I did not starve. On the train I was able to fill up on a chocolate orange muffin notable for it's unworldly colour. To be honest if you sat in front of it for long enough you'd get a suntan. I own an orange colour car and even that isn't this orange. It probably doesn't taste as nice as this did either.

The trolley operator was surprised when I purchased my food. She'd obviously spent the day dragging the thing up and down a quiet train and from the look of the stock my travelling companions weren't hungry. Mind you, the only other people in the coach were a couple who seemed to be studying closely the Daily Mail which was proclaiming that dissatisfaction with rubbish collections was resulting in 3 attacks on bin men every day. Presumably the writers of the paper though this was a good thing as they sat in a warm office in front of a computer having arrived at their desk some time after 9am. Later the couple turned to the Telegraph and the husband took great delight in reading items from the letters page agreeing with the Chinese Governments deployment of the death penalty.

Crewe is a station with a small town attached. Until 1831 it was a village with only 70 residents, then the Grand Junction Railway decided that it would be a nice spot for an engine works and station. Even today the station is impressive in a ramshackle kind of way. The low winter sun made for some spectacular photographic possibilities and I think I took what is possibly my best railway photo ever.



Of course Crewe station is home to the much maligned train spotter. Even on a cold New Years Eve there will still a dozen of so men in their late middle age and hearty outdoor clothing hanging around the platform ends watching trains. I feel a bit sorry for them - not only does the general population and mass media stigmatise their hobby as being worse than terrorism and mass murder, the railway have let them down. Once upon a time trains were made up of coaches with a locomotive at the front. Nowadays the coaches have engines and all look the same. On this one day though, with the sun shining, the trainspotters got a gift - into platform 10 (I think, Crewe is a bit of a maze) came 3 engines, being moved around for something technical to happen. 3 in one train ! You could see the faces light up.

More photos of Crewe.

I seemed to be one of the few heading to Chester. The train was quiet again although at one end of the coach there was a lady with one of those wheely suitcases who insisted on standing up with it in the aisle rather than availing herself of the many comfy seats available. From the way she clung on grimly to her luggage I assume that she was moving the crown jewels...

Chester starts with a huge railway station. The frontage is enormous - it's far too wide for my camera and even a decent panoramic outfit would struggle. The signposts point two ways into the city centre and I took the one that lead over the canal and past the slightly over restored Steam Mill. Once this will have made something useful but now it's a multipurpose nightclub and small business venue with what appears to be a greenhouse placed very tastefully on to. It's a very handsome building and rather more industrial than I'd expected to find in a historic Roman town.

Once into the city centre there was another surprise. It shouldn't have been of course as even the most cursory research (or looking things up on Wikipedia) would have forewarned me about the Rows. Chester's shops are a curious and unique design with two floors of frontage. The top row is set slightly back from the front and has a walkway along it. Therefore to see any street properly you need to make 4 passes, 2 at ground level and 2 at the first floor. On a rainy day I can see the upper levels doing good business as people shelter from the weather. Even those buildings that have been re-built maintain the design. Most of the structures are black and white wooden but there are a few that date from the 1960's and later yet have been incorporated into the frontage sympathetically.



Another rarity are the city walls. For the casual visitor a quick nip along them allows you to loop from one area of town to another without retracing your steps. They afford excellent views of the cathedral and surrounding area. Some bookshops have even taken up residence along side them. In fact one of the joys is wandering as there are so many side streets and little alleyways to explore. Knowing I was tight for time I didn't had to pass many of these by but a weekend would be more appropriate to do the place justice. A complete circumnavigation by walking the walls ought to take a couple of hours, although this isn't possible at present due to a collapse earlier this year. At present repairs are being made but the archaeologists are taking the opportunity to find out more about the construction while access is available. Things should be back to normal by summer 2010 though.

Chester doesn't stand still though. A major re-working of the town cetre is planned, in fact the tower cranes are already looming. One casualty would appear to be the indoor market. Always a fan of these, this isn't one of the best but it has atmosphere, a lot of variety and a Christmas display that left the song "Rudolph the Red Nose Raindeer" rattling around my head for the next couple of hours...

My train home left in a different direction from the way I'd arrived which was exciting as that means a trip through Wales via Wrexham, Ruabon and Gobowen. This last stop is somewhere I've been before. For the leisure train traveller it represents the furthest west you can go on a West Midlands ranger ticket - any further and the network is Welsh (Gobowen is in Shropshire) and you'll need a different ticket sir. Sadly although the station is intact, the enormous coal conveyer and sorting system that delighted those of a mechanical bent is long gone and replaced by an icy puddle of a car park.

On the train, half the passengers were Arriva trains staff who told "war stories" to each other. One recent tale involved a passenger who was unhappy that people kept checking her ticket. She refused to show it to the guard on the grounds that he'd seen it several times already. As told the man said, "The more she protested, the more determined I was to see this ticket" and his comrades nodded in ageement, doubtless all with simialr stores to tell. Not all end quite the same way though. Eventually the woman reaslised that she hadn't show this guard her ticket after all because, "The last person I showed it to was a female." and promtly produced said item.

The trip through Wales was beautiful, or at least world have been if Arriva ever cleaned thier trains. If you are going to paint the coaches silver, get a system to wash them as they look terrible when covered in muck. Worse, from the effect from inside of a glorious sunset over snow topped hills was slightly lessened by all the mud on the windows.



More Chester Photos.

So I made one destination and thoroughly enjoyed it. Let's hope 2010 works better !

London sights

Not all visits work out as well as expected - my trip to the cartoon gallery would have been more successful if I'd checked and realised that it doesn't open on Monday - but that doesn't mean a wasted day.

Strolling around London, in the grounds of Burlington House is the amazing sculpture "The Tall Tree and the Eye" by Anish Kapoor. At a guess, it's over 80 feet tall and absolutely amazing.

The mirror finish on the spheres reflects the view of the courtyard from many slightly different vantage points. Unsurprisingly, it was surrounded by photographers all shooting their reflections. Even those who don't like modern art will appreciate this - I wish it could go on a tour as I'd love to see it appearing in other cities. Victoria Square in Birmingham would be a good start - watching the fountain in reflection would be a treat.

It's not just art that caught my eye though. Wandering down to the International Magic shop I happened upon Holborn Bars which is just the most stunning brick built building. Now home to the Prudential and RBS, it stands on the site of the building that was lived in by Charles Dickens.

The place was built in an age was labour was cheap and civic buildings were erected with pride and intended to stand for many, many years to come.

Beetle Drive, Crich Tramway Museum

Terrible isn't it – you wait ages for a VeeDub event and then two come along all at once ! At least that's what the organisers of the annual Beelte Drive (geddit ?) must have thought when their low key show clashed with the much bigger VW Action. However I didn't know this at the time, so chose Crich for a day out. Anyway, Action won't be the same at any venue other than the Stoneliegh park site I remember visiting all those years ago just after I got my bug...

Another reason to go is that as a member of the Tramway museum getting in would be free. Besides, I haven't been there since last year and there has been quite a bit of building work on site since then and it's fun to spot the changes.

For those not familiar with the museum at Crich, it has a street scene at one end where you can board one of the many beautifully restored tramcars. You then ride up the line, turn around and return to stop off at the half way point where there is a mining display (the site is shared with a quarry) followed by another ride back to the tram sheds and displays. Trust me, if you like vintage transport, it's fantastic.

Add to this a load of old Volkswagens, not just Beetles but Type 2's, Wedge's, Ghias and (grits teeth) some of the watercooled stuff and what better way to spend a Sunday, even if it does involve a drive up the M1 ?

When we arrived, there were old VW's everywhere. In the car park, around the bandstand and filling the street scene. All the time the trams kept up a shuttle service and seemed to be doing excellent business. I don't remember the average age of the audience being so young either which shows that the museum is very cleverly attracting a new audience with these special events.

After a tea and choccie cake stop we took a ride on the top deck of a Liverpool Green Goddess. The weather was fine and the Derbyshire countryside looked lovely. Even the farm in the next door valley appeared to have been tided up a bit. Well the vehicle graveyard looked a bit smaller anyway.

At the mining exhibition there is a little hut where a fantastic, enthusiastic and very knowledgeable lady sells you some rocks from around the world. I can't resist this every time – there is no high pressure sales technique, just fascinating things which she insists you don't leave with until you understand what they are and where they come from.

Back at the street end we arrived just in time for the first parade. Most of the cars withdrew to the car parks and then drove in convoy back down the street, turned around and did another lap. There were so many of them that the tail was quickly caught by the head of the line and we had a few minutes of continuous dubbin'

Lots of exuberant horn blowing was quickly stopped – the local residents don't appreciate it apparently. Shame really as it was a very happy sound and can't be any louder than the blasting in the quarry can it ? Most of the drivers complied but there are always one or two especially an idiot in a while bug wearing a neck brace who seemed to be under the impression none of the shouting applied to him. The brace was obviously not to hold up the great weight of his brain...

Because of the clash, trade was limited to a model stall and one selling the coolest VW shirts I've ever seen. Very sensible prices too. If they had take plastic or I hadn't spent so much the night before my wardrobe would be even fuller At least I bagged one which will be on a trip to the pub very soon.

All in all, a really lovely little event. OK so there wasn't the pizazz of the bigger shows but this was fun. People laughed and smiled and clearly enjoyed themselves even if there weren't the tradition piles of rusty exhaust bits to sort though found at bigger shows.

By now all you want to do is see photos, so please head off to my Flickr collection where they are waiting for you.

Tramway Museum official web site.

Little bits of London

A couple of months ago the Guardian printed a couple of booklets entitled "Secret Britain". Normally these head sort of things head straight for the recycling box as soon as the paper is opened but this one caught my imagination. Reading through, the obvious starting point was to try and "do" the London bits. I love London but need an incentive to visit the areas I've not been to before. The easiest way to see the city properly is to pick some destinations and then walk between them, then who knows what you might find ?

For me, the capital is about 90 minutes away by train. Chiltern Railways provide a nice efficient service and also sell "e-tickets". My plan involved killing two birds with one stone and trying out one of these as well as getting a cheap trip. An e- ticket has to be bought on-line in advance. The "ticket" is then texted to your mobile 'phone as a picture of a bar code. No trees are harmed in the production of this ticket. To be honest, once these arrived I wasn't entirely convinced that this would work but maybe this technology stuff will catch on one day.

From the guide I picked a couple of secret objects to visit: The smallest Police station in Trafalgar Square and Samuel Gurney's drinking fountain in Holburn. To this I added one of my own, the prototype red telephone box at Burlington House. According to the map these were walkable in the time available and would allow me to travel through places I'd never been.

At Leamington station the ticket barrier monitor didn't look at me stupid when I showed him my phone - he just opened the barriers for me (as an aside, where is the saving if you have to employ someone to man the automatic barriers) and I wandered up the the platform. With all the efficiency you'd hope for, my train arrived and just before lunchtime I was in the big smoke. Price to get there - a tenner.

Normally I make an effort to get in to "town" early to get the most out of the day. Buying cheap tickets limits this a lot during the week as Chiltern can fill all the commuter trains they like with people paying full fare and so have no desire to make things easy for the plebs wanting to play tourist. The benefit of a lunchtime(ish) arrival was that I managed to tick off another London thing - sausage, egg & chips at the cafe opposite Marylebone station. London cafs are great and for £2.95 I had 2 sausages, egg and chips. Tea in a mug and a cookie (to eat while wandering around) brought the total to just over the fiver. Excellent value and very delicious thank you very much. Just the thing to set you up for a good stroll. And I took a picture since it seems everyone likes photos of food judging by the response to a recent shot of some Yorkshire pud I posted once.

The first destination was Burlington Arcade, first introduced to me by AA Milne in his delightful 1920 collection of essays, "If I may". Milne used the arcade as a place to shelter from the rain before a lunch appointment. He describes the vendors as offering choices between regimental colour pajamas and strings of beads. Nowadays things have changed little. The pajamas are probably still available but mostly the gentleman is presented with a selection of cashmere sweaters and brogues. The former seem to me to be like normal jumpers, just rather more expensive. One even looked just like the sort of thing a granny might present you with at Christmas - the chest was a picture of a yacht deck with the sleeves in a gaudy blue and yellow. Yours sir, for a shade under 600 quid. Yes really.

The jewelers fared a little better. Perhaps the London Jewelry week promotions, the arcade was carpeted with a red rug decorated with crystal designs, we helping move some stock but not much. Inside one shop the laptop on the counter was set to the Windows Vista game section of the programs screen. Someone was presumably having a lot of Patience while they waited to sell a Solitaire...

A couple of doors down was my first objective, Burlington House. In the entrance archway there are two traditional London telephone boxes, K2's for the cognoscente. The one on the right is extra special. Thanks to John Timpson's book "Requiem for a Red Box" I know that this is the prototype for this archetypal British building designed by Sir Giles Gilbery Scott. A small British Telecom plaque inside tells the visitor that this was the original, as does tapping on the sides - it's made of wood rather than the cast iron of production versions.

Of course most people ignore the box - London is littered with them as well as the later and slightly smaller K6 versions - they are heading for the art gallery inside. By accident I had happened upon the Summer Exhibition. This is when 10,000 artworks are submitted by absolutely anyone and 1000 are chosen for display. It's an annual event that often appears on TV with some presenter trying to get their daub through the judging process and on to the wall. I've never been so in the spirit of adventure, I paid my 7 quid and went in.

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like (who said that, oh, me just now). What I know is that on that basis, an awful lot of this was rubbish. And quite badly displayed. For example, the Small Western room is a small side gallery, the walls of which are covered in pictures. Many of these are wonderful small pictures but are displayed 10 feet above the ground. How are you supposed to appreciate them from the floor ?

Other rooms feature larger works with much more space around them. Perhaps my favorite showed off architects models on black shelving. Again, the person "hanging" these ought to realise we don't all come on stilts and if it's too high off the ground we can't see through the shelf either. Some nice stuff though and I appreciate the skill involved in making the models. One point, those who are comissioning the new Newport Station might want to do a quick search on "Ladies reproductive organs" before approving the model that was on display. You will thank me for that advice.

Having said that, the sheer variety of work on display meant there is something for everyone. Postcard from Heaven was simple enough, the back of a postcard asking the judging panel to put this in the exhibition because her mum would be so proud. Winter Allotments was another joy, a slightly cartoonish painting of a man on his allotment surrounded by plants and other horticultural stuff. It was one of those pictures you could look at again and again and see something new each time. Sadly even if I could have afforded it, the painting had sold by the time I visited, as had much of the art on display.

Exiting the main exhibition, via the room with video art (all video art is shite by the way so I won't bore you with it) and pausing only to discover that the meagre selection of postcards in the shop didn't include any of the works I'd liked, I wandered across the stairs to the free, fine art part of the hall. Here, in incredibly ornate rooms, were some of the most serious and dull oil paintings you can find, However, even here I learnt something. I am an Aestheticist. Basically I take my art at face value and consider that if something has to be explained to me, it's probably rubbish. Actually this isn't entirely true, I can appreciate the workmanship in producing something too but if it's badly made and looks a mess then it can go in a skip rather than a gallery. This will not endear me to the art world which prefers inaccessible toss.

Enough art however, I needed to be on my way but outside Burlington House was another distraction - Fortnum & Mason. For those not familiar with the name, it's a posh grocer. They still display the Queen Mother's crest proudly although I wonder if someone ought tell them there is a reason she's not been in to pay her bill recently. This is one of those shops on the tourist trail along with Harrods and probably Hamleys. Inside is sumptuous and full of pricey stuff. I'd love to be the sort of person who considered this to be a handy local shop I nipped in to regularly for provisions, it's so wonderfully olde-worlde.

A short stroll led me to Trafalgar Square and my second objective - the world's smallest police station. Stone built with slit windows and surmounted by a lantern, this was apparently used to keep look out during political demonstrations and had a telephone hot line to Scotland Yard. This isn't as unusual as you might think, those famous police boxes a la Dr Who were also used for the same purpose. Some were even made large enough to house a temporary cell. Nowadays radios and squad cars have left the station as a cleaners cupboard.

Next stop was to be Holburn and this was reached via The Strand and a short stretch of Fleet Street. En route I took in such gems as Somerset House and the Royal Courts of justice. Tripping over locations like this so often makes you realise how small London really is. As a tube user you simply don't get the geography or the concentration of good things in such a small area.

Gurney's fountain took a little finding but it's in the railing of St Sepulchre's church oppose the the Old Bailey. I'll admit I wouldn't fancy trying it, even if the water were working. The cups attached by chains my be nice an original but I feel hygiene may have been compromised in the 150 years since it was installed.

Having completed my mission and still with several hours to kill before the return train I looked around and spotted sign - the Smithfield Market. Now I've heard of this but again, never been there. Smithfield is the last surviving wholesale market in London. Once upon a time Covent Garden used to be the place to go for fruit and veg and not a tourist attraction and there were others. Times change and only the meat trade still works in this way. Even they have had to make changes as you aren't allowed to hang carcases on hooks in the open air any more.

The first thing that strikes you, or at least me, is the sheer size of the place. It's enormous. Apparently during WW2 the market was evacuated as it was easy to spot from the air and the authorities didn't feel regular concentrations of people in such a good target was a good idea. Arriving mid afternoon, everything was pretty much shut down apart from a couple of people hosing down a stand hidden behind some thick plastic curtains. Even empty though, the hall was striking. Imagining, with the help of a photo display handily provided for tourists, a market in full swing wasn't difficult and it must have been some sight. Apparently all the work was helped by local pubs opening early in the morning to lubricate workers who had clocked on well before dawn.

After this, my route is a bit of a blur. Trusting my sense of direction, and not being able to work out properly on my little map where I was I picked my way across the city heading in what I hoped was the right direction. Working on the basis that the Post Office Tower was too north and too west of where I wanted to be helped.

A couple of discoveries helped my trip. International Magic is a small shop but in the back of its dark interior you can buy magic tricks and have them demonstrated to you. A few doors down there is another business selling stainless steel screws...

All this walking made me peckish and by chance there was an "All you can eat" Thai Buffet. The food looked good and indeed the first plate was. Washing this down with some guava juice I headed up for a second dose, well you want to get value for money don't you, and it seemed the a switch had been thrown to make all the food taste less nice. Not nasty but just bad enough to stop the casual diner from eating all day. Do they all do this ? Is it just me ? If not, can this trick be patented - I foresee big sales in similar restaurants !

Last stop was Marylebone village. To me Marylebone is just the name of a station but it appears once upon a time this was a discrete area of the capital, probably in the days where there was hunting in Soho, and some marketing guru has decided that it would be profitable to keep the concept. Hence in a few days, there will be the Marylebone Village Fayre. Probably with maypoles and other rustic stuff. This is a reminder that London is home to around 7.5 million people, some of whom live in very nice little places indeed. Real communities exist so I suppose stores like Fortnum & Mason really are some peoples local shop.

As the sun set, crowds gathered outside pubs for traditional post work drinks. They spilled out over every pavement as the hot weather made sitting inside less appealing. Others relaxed with a cup of tea and puff on a hookah beside several cafes. Many hurried back to their last commute of the day gathering the free papers for entertainment on the journey. Even the half seven train was busy but with my £5 ticket scanned by the man on the gate I was assured of a seat through the countryside as my feet recovered a bit from the pounding. Why are London pavements so hard ?

I took some more pictures, go and have a look.